[Avodah] tora state

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, January 24, 2008 5:53 pm, Saul.Z.Newman at kp.org wrote:
: from a RW rabbi on the OU website, has his own idea of a 'tora state'
: I believe that the time has come to establish a political party
: whose platform is unashamedly for a Torah state.
=======
: The leadership will be composed of rabbis who regard the medina not as
: a mere political entity but as the forerunner of the final geula.

This criterion is so restrictive as to make it hard for me to consider
the result a Torah state. You're not only excluding ROY, but even the
OU's mentor, RYBS would be excluded, as would Mizrachi's founder, R'
Reines.

In a state run by halakhah, you would need the consensus of all posqim
from among shomerei Torah umitzvos. One can not run a halachic gov't
by ignoring shiv'im panim laTorah.

This in turn might necessitate some mechanism for nimnu vegamru --
some way of determining majority or consensus.

Probably consensus -- the CI was very against relying on majority
outside of the Sanhedrin. This was part of his objection to voicing an
opinion to the Mirer crowd in Shanghai about when to observe Yom
Kippur. They needed to as a rav, not get a majority of EY's poseqim.

In turn, I may well have painted the impossibility of a halachic gov't
of any large number of people before mashiach comes. We would have to
think of a town, not a city or country. A small area, where the range
of derakhim is limited to those compatible with the sociological
groups of that shechunah, may still be more doable.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
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